Before you buy · AI keys & costs

Your own AI key.
Cents per video.

The studio's AI planning — script writing, hooks, deciding where captions, zooms and B-roll go — runs through an AI provider account that you own. You paste one key into Settings, once. No markup, no metering by us: you pay your provider exactly what the AI calls cost.

What an API key is

An API key is a long code (it looks like sk-ant-…) that lets an app make AI requests billed to your account — like a payment-enabled password for one specific service. You create it on the provider's website, paste it into the studio's Settings page, and never think about it again. Treat it like a password: don't share it or post it publicly.

Getting one takes about five minutes

The studio works with Claude (Anthropic), DeepSeek, or any OpenAI-compatible provider via a custom endpoint. For Claude, for example: sign up at console.anthropic.com, add a small amount of prepaid credit ($5 goes a long way), create a key under API keys, and paste it into the studio's Settings. The yellow "no key yet" notice on the home page disappears once it's saved. The other providers work the same way on their own sites.

What it costs to run

• Transcription & captions — free, runs locally on your machine
• Rendering — free, your own hardware does it (1080p MP4)
• AI planning & script calls — typically cents per video, paid to your provider
• Optional AI-generated B-roll (Runway, Google Veo) — about $0.60 per generated clip
• Optional stock B-roll via Pexels — free key

The only per-video cost that always applies is the AI planning, and it's small — the heavy work (transcribing, rendering) never leaves your computer, so there are no cloud-rendering fees and no monthly platform bill. AI-generated B-roll is entirely optional and billed by that provider only when you use it.